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"Indecision is like a stepchild: if he does not wash his hands, he is called dirty, if he does, he is wasting water."
-African Proverb
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"The whole world steps aside for the man who knows where he is going."
-Anon.
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All we see of someone at any moment is a snapshot of their life, there in riches or poverty, in joy or despair. Snapshots don't show the million decisions that led to tht moment.
-Richard Bach, Running from Saftey
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"One's mind has a way of making itself up in the background, and it suddenly becomes clear what one means to do."
-A. C. Benson
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It is the characteristic excellence of the strong man that he can bring momentous issues to the fore and make a decision about them. The weak are always forced to decide between alternatives they have not chosen themselves.
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Consequences flow from a justice's interpretation in a direct and immediate way. A judicial decision respecting the incompatibility of Jim Crow with a constitutional guarantee of equality is not simply a contemplative exercise in defining the shape of a just society. It is an order–supported by the full coercive power of the State–that the present society change in a fundamental aspect. Under such circumstances the process of deciding can be a lonely, troubling experience for fallible human beings conscious that their best may not be adequate to the challenge. We Justices are certainly aware that we are not final because we are infallible; we know that we are infallible only because we are final. One does not forget how much may depend on the decision. More than the litigants may be affected. The course of vital social, economic and political currents may be directed.
-Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., Address: To the Text and Teaching Symposium, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., October 12, 1985
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I take great comfort in having people around who can walk in my office and tell me what's on their mind. Part of my job is -- they say, "what's your job?" My job is decision-maker. I make a lot of decisions. Obviously, some of which you've seen, and a lot of them you don't. And they're big ones and little ones. But you make a lot of decisions. And if you don't -- if you're uncertain about all the facts surrounding a decision, you've got to rely upon people. And you've then got to create an environment in which people are willing to come in and say, "here's what's on my mind."
It's important at the presidential level. It's important in business. You've got to have people comfortable about saying, "Here's what I think you ought to do, Mr. CEO." You've got to listen and have a -- I've always believed in a flat organizational chart. I think the worst thing that can happen for decision-makers is to get a filtered point of view.
-George W. Bush, "Importance of Small Business in Economic Growth", [answering the question: How do you remain upbeat when you're surrounded by the burdens of leadership?], January 19, 2006
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They are decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.
-Sir Winston Churchill
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"We can try to avoid making choices by doing nothing, but even that is a decision."
-Gary Collins
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"Most of the things we decide are not what we know to be the best. We say yes, merely because we are driven into a corner and must say something."
-Frank Crane, Essays
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Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
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"When making a decision of minor importance, I have always found it advantageous to consider all the pros and cons. In vital matters, however, such as the choice of a mate or a profession, the decision should come from the unconscious, from somewhere within ourselves. In the important decisions of personal life, we should be governed, I think, by the deep inner needs of our nature."
-Sigmund Freud
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"I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."
-Robert Frost, Road Not Taken, The
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"If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, when?"
-Rabbi Hillel, recorded in Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers [Mishnah 14], a tractate of the Mishnah)
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What are the convulsions of a city in comparison with the insurrections of the soul? Man is a depth still greater than the people. Jean Valjean at that very moment was the prey of a terrible upheaval. Every sort of gulf had opened again within him. He also was trembling, like Paris, on the brink of an obscure and formidable revolution. A few hours had sufficed to bring this about. His destiny and his conscience had suddenly been covered with gloom. Of him also, as well as of Paris, it might have been said: "Two principles are face to face. The white angel and the black angel are about to seize each other on the bridge of the abyss. Which of the two will hurl the other over? Who will carry the day?"
-Victor Hugo, Les Miserables (Vol. IV. Book Fifteenth)
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Make up your mind to act decidedly and take the consequences. No good is ever done in this world by hesitation.
-Thomas Henry Huxley
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The great decisions of human life usually have far more to do with the instincts and other mysterious unconscious factors than with conscious will and well-meaning reasonableness. The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no universal recipe for living. Each of us carries his own life-form within him--an irrational form which no other can outbid.
-Carl Gustav Jung, The Aims of Psychotherapy
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When I face an issue of great import that cleaves both constituents and colleagues, I always take the same approach. I engage in deep deliberation and quiet contemplation. I wait to the last available minute and then I always vote with the losers. Because, my friend, the winners never remember and the losers never forget.
-Thomas H. Kean
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Decision: Something a man makes when he cannot get anyone to serve on a committee.
-Fletcher Knebel
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Once we make our decision, all things will come to us. Auspicious signs are not a superstition, but a confirmation. They are a response.
-Deng Ming-Dao
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All our final decisions are made in a state of mind that is not going to last.
-Marcel Proust
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"If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable."
another phrasing: "If a man knows not what harbor he seeks, any wind is the right wind."
-Seneca (Seneca the Elder)
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"It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong."
-Thomas Sowell
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Whenever I make a bum decision, I go out and make another one.
-Harry S Truman
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Books about Decisions
